There’s a Grand Old War brewing in Cincinnati, where Judge Robert Ruehlman just sentenced two women for election falsification. The women in question were working for the Equal Rights, Not Special Rights campaign, which hoped to boot gay non-discrimination from the state’s law books.

As part of their plot, the women forged a number of signatures, including “Fidel Castro”. Those bitches be dum –
Mere rank-and-file canvassers, the women were really working for Republican representative Tom Brinkman, whom registered Republican Ruehlman would love to nail:

I still think real culprit is Rep. Brinkman. I know politics. Somehow [Brinkman] falls between the cracks and is not prosecutedâ€¦ the guy in power is the one who should have been indicted.

The county’s Republican prosecutor, Joe Deters claims a case against Brinkman would be too difficult to prove. Gay activist Gary Wright, former president of Equality Ohio, says Deters and Brinkman both need to be taken down a peg: The prosecutorâ€™s office canâ€™t possibly be objective. The judge let the prosecutorâ€™s office off too easy.â€ Meanwhile, Brinkman’s cronies have been sentenced to probation and 200-hours of community service…

They were collecting signatures to repeal a local ordinance in Cincinnati, not a state law.

Ohio has no ENDA-type law regarding employment in the private sphere. Governor Strickland resumed the practice (discontinued under his predecessor) of including–by executive order–sexual orientation in the state’s non-discrimination policy.